A fine book thanks to its wonderful main character, Bucephalas, the proud, ornery and honorable leader of King Alexander's "herd." His horseiness is effective and fun--"I gave him flat ears"--and effectively applied to the human behavior he sees, like Alexander and his many enemies forever engaging in "squealing contests," people giving each other the human equivalent of flat ears, etc. His perspective is altogether horsey, as when he gives the statistics after each battle of however many thousands of enemy dead, X-number of Macedonians, X-number of horses (many by name--"sad, sad, sad, sad, sad!!!"). When he names the guard that led into battle, it's the horses he names (starting with "Me, Bucephalas") followed by which soldier each was carrying. His own and other horses' extraordinarily brave behavior in battle is given attention seldom considered, as he--being kind of a nasty tempered stallion anyway--is biting and rearing and inspiring fear in the enemy just as he does with grooms and other horses--and dodging spears the way a cutting horse works a cow and giving his all to keep his rider safe. It's a point of desperate shame for a war horse to allow his rider to be wounded, let alone to return from battle riderless. He has his best friends, favorite mares, and lesser-character types among the horses, but interestingly, as the narrative is conceived here, the animals don't "converse" among themselves, though they communicate beautifully with their neighs and nickers and squeals. They don't need a bunch of "boring" talk about honor and glory--the kind of stuff that pumps up the troops and sends B back to his hay. Alexander and B are a perfect pair as lead stallions--B literally and A figuratively "dominating dung" (the horsey equivalent of territorial pissing, of course) everywhere they go. One of B's greatest lines is the prideful exclamation at the end of a successful battle or squealing contest: "Ha! dominated."

A very effective trope in the book is B's sixth sense--he sees ghosts, and it is the terror of this at times that causes him to act up--freeze or run in fear, as horses will. He always sees a killed horse's or soldier's ghost rise into the air, and he knows, even from a distance, if someone has died. This becomes an extraordinarily eerie and powerful thing as the book progresses and the numbers of dead rise and Bucephalas himself ages. One friend, Borealis, dies a terrible death on a snowy mountain pass; when the army takes that route again, B starts in horror at the sight of the skeleton--and of the ghost of Borealis waiting there. Borealis pricks his ears and joins his friends and is never far away again, grazing nearby or even entering an empty stall next to B at a stable--an omen if ever there was one, and Alexander sees him, too. As they retrace other battle sites, the ghosts of other dead horses shimmer into view and rejoin the guard--Zoroaster the Persians' kindly sacred gelding, Psylla the brave little mare lost early on, etc. B always neighs after a battle to check in on his personal herd and ticks off their return neighs to be certain they're okay--and among the neighs he recognizes is that of Borealis. A shock--the first time he's ever heard a ghost neigh. When B is gravely injured in battle, the ghosts become more solid. His death is handled with extraordinary delicacy. His great heart stops beating...then begins again. He rises, feeling strong and pain-free, his ghostly friends whinny joyfully to him... There's no mention of realization that he's a ghost himself as he hurries with the guard to the site where word is the king is dying. (He's a great and powerful ghost, by the way, splashing his favorite mare in a water crossing till she gets annoyed with him, giving flat ears to guards who feel intimidated as ever by SOMEthing...) He's at Alexander's bedside when the king's ghost rises. He takes his king on his back once more and they ride into eternity together, conquering death--"Ha!"

Unfortunately, the weak links in this otherwise powerfully imagined magical history are the humans. Alexander comes off pretty much as a megalomaniacal, psychotic knucklehead (not exactly a nuanced portrayal to vie with Mary Renault's), and the fictitious add-ons are blatantly just that: the evil horsemaster, hated by B and dismissed by A, who's around every corner plotting and figuratively twirling his mustache; and Charm, the girl groom first disguised as a boy, who's the only OTHER (uh-huh) person who can ride B, who runs around having psychic dreams and blubbering a lot, and is clearly invented to reel in teenaged girl readers. These are the elements (primarily) that make this a young adult novel. "The great horse" doesn't need their "help" to tell his brave story. ( )

Conquests of Alexander the Great through the eyes (and ears) of his horse, Bucephalas. ( )

This is an epic tale with a twist. Alexander the Great's stallion, Bucephalas, tells the story of life as a battle horse as seen through a horse's eyes. The steed of a king is as important as any weapon and it therefore lays on the shoulders of Charmeia, the stable girl, to make sure Bucephalas is fit and ready for battle. But can she do it and still keep all her secrets? ( )